ABSTRACT
At each moment in time throughout our lives we are all gendered bodies. Yet, despite the massive, penetrating presence of gender, there is no original pure body, no original pure gender. The processes by which gender is produced and reproduced are never-ending. Even when gender is not a conscious identity, it is constantly being constructed in relation to messages and meaning structures in our environment – in the media, the workplace, the home. Gender is socially constructed as it is built into our very selves. And, because our very selves are all historically and geographically located in real places, gender is necessarily experienced through the complex matrices of culture. This omnipresence of gender makes it a very diffuse object of study.
